Real and Fake Lao Tzu Quotes, Checked Against the Tao Te Ching

Who Lao Tzu was, or wasn’t

Nobody knows who Lao Tzu was, or whether he was one person. The earliest biography, by the historian Sima Qian around 100 BCE, names an archivist at the Zhou court, Li Er, said to have met Confucius and written a book of some five thousand words for a guard at a border pass. Then it gives two other candidates and says that no one knows which is right.

The book was not written at one sitting. Bamboo slips found at Guodian in 1993, from a tomb of around 300 BCE, hold about two thousand characters of it, in a different order. Silk copies found at Mawangdui in 1973 put the second half first. Scholars now read the Tao Te Ching as an anthology from many hands, which settled into roughly its present form by the middle of the third century BCE.

How the English Lao Tzu was made

The Scottish scholar James Legge published a close translation in 1891. The Chinese is terse, and Legge put the words he had to add in brackets, so a reader can see where the text ends and he begins. Many English versions followed.

Much of the Lao Tzu on our feeds comes from one of them: Stephen Mitchell’s, from 1988, a free version that by his own account paraphrases and interprets as well as translates. Four of the lines below come from his book. Others come from American self-help writers, a recovery daybook and a different Chinese classic.

The lines, checked

For each line: the chapter it comes from, what Legge’s translation says, and what changed on the way.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”
Close to the text
Where it’s from
Chapter 64. Legge’s translation.
What the source says
Legge (1891): The tree which fills the arms grew from the tiniest sprout; the tower of nine storeys rose from a (small) heap of earth; the journey of a thousand li commenced with a single step.
What changed
Legge’s li, a Chinese measure of distance, became miles. In the Chinese it begins beneath the feet. The chapter is about dealing with things while they are still small.
“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”
Close to the text
Where it’s from
Chapter 33. Legge’s translation.
What the source says
Legge: He who knows other men is discerning; he who knows himself is intelligent. He who overcomes others is strong; he who overcomes himself is mighty.
What changed
The popular wording is Stephen Mitchell’s, word for word. He adds “true” twice. The pairing of others against oneself is in the Chinese.
“Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.”
Close to the text
Where it’s from
Chapter 56. Legge’s translation.
What the source says
Legge: He who knows (the Tao) does not (care to) speak (about it); he who is (ever ready to) speak about it does not know it.
What changed
Almost nothing. Legge’s brackets narrow it to knowing the Tao. The Chinese, six characters, leaves it open.
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
Reworked
Where it’s from
Chapter 73, through Archie Bahm’s version (1958), which renders the Tao as “Nature” throughout.
What the source says
Legge: Its demonstrations are quiet, and yet its plans are skilful and effective. Bahm’s chapter 73: It does not hurry; yet everything is accomplished.
What changed
The way of Heaven became Nature, and unhurried planning became not hurrying. It is a free reading, then a free reading of that.
“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.”
Reworked
Where it’s from
Chapter 9, through Stephen Mitchell’s version (1988).
What the source says
Legge: When wealth and honours lead to arrogancy, this brings its evil on itself. Mitchell: Care about people's approval / and you will be their prisoner.
What changed
The chapter warns that wealth and honors breed arrogance. Mitchell made it about approval, and the popular line hardened that into “what other people think” and added “always”.
“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”
Reworked
Where it’s from
Chapter 44, in Stephen Mitchell’s version.
What the source says
Legge, who sets this part as verse: Who is content / Needs fear no shame.
What changed
The popular line is Mitchell’s, word for word. The chapter says contentment keeps us from disgrace and danger. “The whole world belongs to you” is his.
“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving.”
Reworked
Where it’s from
Chapter 27, in Stephen Mitchell’s version.
What the source says
Legge’s chapter opens with the skillful traveler who leaves no tracks of wheels or feet. Read it.
What changed
The chapter is about leaving no trace. Mitchell made it about having no plan and no destination.
“If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.”
Someone else’s
Where it’s from
A 1987 recovery daybook, Days of Healing, Days of Joy, credits the first two sentences to “Jimmy R.”
What the source says
When I am anxious it is because I am living in the future. When I am depressed it is because I am living in the past.
What changed
A line from twelve-step recovery gained a third sentence and a famous name. The Lao Tzu version turns up in books from 2012.
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow.”
Someone else’s
Where it’s from
Vernon Howard, an American self-help writer, in The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power (1967).
What the source says
His chapter on Taoism has Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. No chapter of the Tao Te Ching does.
What changed
A 1960s summary of Taoism lost its author. We haven’t traced the rest of the popular wording.
“To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.”
Someone else’s
Where it’s from
Zhuangzi, a different Taoist book, chapter 13, as Arthur Waley quoted it in The Way and Its Power (1934).
What the source says
Herbert Giles’s 1889 translation of that chapter: Mental equilibrium gives them sovereignty over all creation. Matching Waley’s line to this sentence is our own reading.
What changed
A line from Zhuangzi drifted onto the better-known name.
“Watch your thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions.”
Someone else’s
Where it’s from
Quote Investigator found the earliest close match in a Texas newspaper in 1977, credited to Frank Outlaw, president of a supermarket chain.
What the source says
No chapter of the Tao Te Ching, in Legge or Mitchell.
What changed
A businessman’s saying, with older roots, took on Lao Tzu’s name later.
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”
No source found
Where it’s from
No chapter, in Legge’s or Mitchell’s full text.
What the source says
The nearest idea is chapter 48, on doing less day by day. Legge: He diminishes it and again diminishes it, till he arrives at doing nothing (on purpose).
What changed
No chapter speaks of a self becoming what it might be. The tone is modern self-help.
“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.”
No source found
Where it’s from
No chapter, in Legge’s or Mitchell’s full text.
What the source says
The earliest copy we found, from 2013, credits it to “Unknown”.
What changed
An anonymous modern saying took on the name around 2014.
“Time is a created thing. To say “I don’t have time” is like saying “I don’t want to.””
No source found
Where it’s from
No chapter, in Legge’s or Mitchell’s full text.
What the source says
Neither has any sentence about time of this kind.
What changed
A modern line about busyness borrowed an ancient name.
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
No source found
Where it’s from
No chapter. It was credited to Lao Tzu by 1988, as the epigraph to a Dean Koontz novel.
What the source says
The nearest is chapter 67. Legge: With that gentleness I can be bold; with that economy I can be liberal; shrinking from taking precedence of others, I can become a vessel of the highest honour.
What changed
Chapter 67 links gentleness to courage. The half about being loved has nothing behind it in the text.

Where the psychology meets it

The idea most people take from the book is wu wei, often put as effortless action. Chapter 37, in Legge: The Tao in its regular course does nothing (for the sake of doing it), and so there is nothing which it does not do.

Psychology has studied the other side of it: what happens when we try too hard. In Daniel Wegner’s 1987 experiment, people told not to think of a white bear thought of it more. The philosopher Edward Slingerland’s Trying Not to Try (2014) argues that early Chinese thinkers, Lao Tzu among them, knew that some things, like spontaneity, can only be reached indirectly. None of this research tests the Tao Te Ching. It runs alongside it.

In the Psychology Library: Flow · Experiential avoidance

Beyond the research

“The thirty spokes unite in the one nave; but it is on the empty space (for the axle), that the use of the wheel depends. Clay is fashioned into vessels; but it is on their empty hollowness, that their use depends.”
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 11, trans. James Legge (1891)

The chapter goes on to the door and windows cut out of a wall to make a room. Much of what we read above was added to him. This one is about what is useful because it is empty.

How we checked

For every line we looked for a chapter. We read James Legge’s 1891 translation in full, matched each line against it and against Stephen Mitchell’s version, and set the received Chinese text beside both. Where a line came from somewhere else, we followed it to the earliest book we could find it in, mostly through scanned books on the Internet Archive and through Quote Investigator.

We don’t read classical Chinese ourselves, and we relied on Legge and on the scholarship in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. When no chapter turned up, we say we found no source. Anyone with a chapter for one of those lines can send it to us.

A question to carry

Which of the lines I trust are older than me?

Questions

Is “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step” really Lao Tzu?

Yes, close enough. It is chapter 64 of the Tao Te Ching. In James Legge’s 1891 translation the distance is a thousand li, a Chinese measure, and the Chinese says it begins beneath the feet.

Did Lao Tzu really exist?

Nobody knows. The earliest biography, written around 100 BCE, offers three possible people and says no one knows which is right. Most scholars read the Tao Te Ching as a collection of sayings gathered over a long time.

Is Stephen Mitchell’s Tao Te Ching a translation?

Mitchell calls it a new English version. In his foreword he says he sometimes paraphrased and interpreted the text as well as translating it. Many of the most-shared “Lao Tzu quotes” are Mitchell’s wording, which is why they read so smoothly in modern English.

Which Tao Te Ching translation is closest to the Chinese?

Literal translations keep closer and read more awkwardly. James Legge’s of 1891 is free to read and puts the words he added in brackets, so a reader can see them.

Is “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be” by Lao Tzu?

We couldn’t find it in any chapter, in Legge’s translation or in Mitchell’s version. Nobody sharing it gives a chapter number.

Sources. The Tao Teh King, trans. James Legge, Sacred Books of the East vol. 39 (Oxford, 1891). Project Gutenberg text.

Alan Chan, “Laozi”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (revised 2025). Sima Qian, Shiji, chapter 63. Chinese text.

Stephen Mitchell, Tao Te Ching: A New English Version (Harper and Row, 1988). Transcription.

Archie J. Bahm, Tao Teh King, Interpreted as Nature and Intelligence (1958). Arthur Waley, The Way and Its Power (1934). Herbert Giles, Chuang Tzu (1889).

Earnest Larsen, Days of Healing, Days of Joy (1987). Vernon Howard, The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power (1967). Quote Investigator, “Watch your thoughts”.

Wegner, Schneider, Carter and White (1987), “Paradoxical effects of thought suppression”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53(1). Edward Slingerland, Trying Not to Try (Crown, 2014).

This page is our reading of the sources above. It will change when they, or our readers, show us something we missed.